


Shattered Light

by BrightLotusMoon



Series: In Darkness And Light [3]
Category: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (TV 2003), Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - All Media Types
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst and Tragedy, Angst with a Happy Ending, Anxiety Attacks, April plays psychologist, Blood and Injury, Body Horror, Break the Cutie, Brotherly Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Chronic Pain, Darktober, Depression, Donnie panics, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Everyone Needs A Hug, Family Feels, Fear, Headaches & Migraines, Heavy Angst, Horrible nightmares, Horror, Hurt/Comfort, I'm going in deep, Implied/Referenced Sexual Assault, Leo blames himself, Little Brothers, Medical Assault, Medical Trauma, Meditation, Mikey Is An Iron Woobie, Nightmares, Non-Consensual Body Modification, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Protective Older Brothers, Psychic Abilities, Psychic Bond, Psychic Mikey, Psychic Violence, Psychological Torture, Raph freezes, Seizures, Splinter doesn't know what to do, Surgery, Survival Horror, This is Catharsis, This shouldn't happen to Mikey, Torture, Trauma, it gets really dark
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-13
Updated: 2018-10-13
Packaged: 2019-07-29 19:31:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 692
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16270865
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BrightLotusMoon/pseuds/BrightLotusMoon
Summary: Michelangelo goes missing, and is found bearing heavy surgical scars, severe burn marks, cracks and breaks in his shell, and evidence of total violation - all signs of being experimented on and discarded. The family struggles to break through the aftereffects, which include vicious flashbacks with violent emotional reactions. Leonardo tries meditation to reach him and unleashes Mike's bizarre and horrific coping mechanisms, which are far darker than the family had expected.





	Shattered Light

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This angst fic initially began in a dream I had in summer 2018. Then the Darktober challenge came around and I decided to try it out. I got paired with Sherenelle and sent her this chapter. She created an incredible work of art out of what I gave her, and I hope I can do the image justice. The actual story is huge and will take a long time to write. It will be cathartic. This is less of a chapter and more of a preview.

 

* * *

 

The nightmare wasn’t his. He should have realized that. But the pull was too strong. Agony overwhelmed him again and he slipped under a darkness too thick to breathe in.

Gasping, Leonardo flung himself upward and pushed against the astral barrier, shattering a psychic wall that shouldn’t have been there. And then he saw it. He was back there again, in his mind, back during that first meditation. Back _there_ , watching, helpless, hearing the raw screaming and seeing the blood—

 _No! No, I refuse!_ He let out a wordless yell and forced himself awake. 

He was still yelling. 

Someone was yelling. 

Someone was _screaming_.

Leo tore out of bed, practically crashed out of his room, sprinting to the room just a couple of doors away.

Raphael and Donatello were shuffling out of their doorways, conscious but not completely aware, and Leonardo took advantage of it to barrel past them and bodily slam into his youngest brother’s door, which flew open with a bang.

Leo’s eyes rapidly adjusted and honed in on both nightlights that were shining torward the bed. On the bed, Michelangelo was twisting in damp sheets, sweat shining on his skin, glistening in the dim lights, illuminating the patchwork of scars all over his body. His face was contorted into a rictus of pain and horror, pure terror tensing every muscle, veins pulsing, the map of silver scars on his head and neck flashing. His eyes were open and rolled back, azure blue glazed and dull, tears spilling. The sound was low, deep in his throat, a keen mixed with a snarl, a vibrating purr that spoke of sheer despair. 

Leo was already kneeling on the bed, pressing his hands to Mikey’s shoulders very lightly, mindful of those horrific surgical scars still healing on his arms and plastron. He whispered Mikey’s name like a salve, putting as much love and care and pure trust into his voice as he had ever done.

Michelangelo bucked against him and continued to sob haltingly, like a badly wounded deer in the headlights of a truck.

“Mikey, Mikey,” Leo called again, removing all bass from his voice, letting a song flow from his throat. “Mikey, _sshhhh_. Shhhh, baby brother, shhhh, it’s all right, you’re all right. It’s Leo. Mikey, it’s me, it's Leonardo. Mike, can you hear me?”

He had learned that young human children and infants calmed more easily when their parent or caregiver made these specific sibilant shushes, not to quiet them but to remind them of white noise, the safety of the womb, of protection. He employed that now, leaning in and very carefully massaging his palm against Michelangelo’s badly-scarred plastron while keeping his mouth close to his brother’s ear.

  
Gradually, the shivering and twitching eased. Not entirely. It might never. Michelangelo gave a cracked whimper, arms instinctively moving up. Leonardo recognized it and gathered him in his arms, rocking him.

“Hey,” he murmured. “Hey, there, little bro, you’re safe. Leo’s here. It’s all right, it’s all right. You’re not there anymore. You’re not there. We rescued you. You’re home. You’re safe. You’re in your room. You’re home. You’re safe. They can’t hurt you, they can’t ever touch you again. Okay? Okay Mikey?"

He sensed Raphael and Donatello behind him, gently moving to surround and project love and safety and warmth. Exhaling shakily, Leo moved his thumb across Mikey’s scarred face, wiping at the tears.

This was so hard. This had been so very hard for everyone, and until the shared dreams last week, he couldn’t have imagined how it was for their baby. Michelangelo had been taken apart and put together like a jigsaw puzzle, things put inside him and removed from him and shifted, a sickening violation of every kind in every sense, and Leonardo and his brothers realized that while nothing would ever be the same, they had to return to some desperate sense of life before the incident or they were going to fall together, all of them, into the inchoate void.

He couldn’t let their heart fall. He had to bring back the light. He nuzzled Mikey’s cheek and hoped that the light wasn’t extinguished forever.


End file.
